preferred to trust to his oars. A short deck at the prow and poop
serve, the one to carry the fighting-men and trumpeters and yardsmen,
and to provide cover for the four guns, the other to accommodate the
knights and gentlemen, and especially the admiral or captain, who sits
at the stern under a red damask canopy embroidered with gold,
surveying the crew, surrounded by the chivalry of "the Religion,"
whose white cross waves on the taffety standard over their head, and
shines upon various pennants and burgees aloft. Behind, overlooking
the roof of the poop, stands the pilot who steers the ship by the
tiller in his hand.

Between the two decks, in the ship's waist, is the propelling power:
fifty-four benches or banks, twenty-seven a side, support each four or
five slaves, whose whole business in life is to tug at the fifty-four
oars. This flagship is a Christian vessel, so the rowers are either
Turkish and Moorish captives, or Christian convicts. If it were a
Corsair, the rowers would all be Christian prisoners. In earlier days
the galleys were rowed by freemen, and so late as 1500 the Moors of
Algiers pulled their own brigantines to the attack of Spanish
villages, but their boats were light, and a single man could pull the
oar. Two or three were needed for a galleot, and as many sometimes as
six for each oar of a large galley. It was impossible to induce
freemen to toil at the oar, sweating close together, for hour after
hour--not sitting, but leaping on the bench, in order to throw their
whole weight on the oar. "Think of six men chained to a bench, naked
as when they were born, one foot on the stretcher, the other on the
bench in front, holding an immensely heavy oar [fifteen feet long],
bending forwards to the stern with arms at full reach to clear the
backs of the rowers in front, who bend likewise; and then having got
forward, shoving up the oar's end to let the blade catch the water,
then throwing their bodies back on to the groaning bench. A galley oar
sometimes pulls thus for ten, twelve, or even twenty hours without a
moment's rest. The boatswain, or other sailor, in such a stress, puts
a piece of bread steeped in wine in the wretched rower's mouth to stop
fainting, and then the captain shouts the order to redouble the lash.
If a slave falls exhausted upon his oar (which often chances) he is
flogged till he is taken for dead, and then pitched unceremoniously
into the sea."[57]

"Those who have not seen a gall